As is generally known, protective garments, such as surgical gowns, surgical drapes, and shoe covers (hereinafter collectively "surgical articles") have been designed to greatly reduce, if not prevent, the transmission through the surgical article of liquid and/or airborne contaminants. In surgical procedure environments, such liquid sources include the gown wearer's perspiration, patient liquids, such as blood, and life support liquids, such as plasma and saline. Examples of airborne contaminants include, but are not limited to, biological contaminants, such as bacteria, viruses and fungal spores. Such contaminants may also include particulate material such as lint, mineral fines, dust, skin squamae and respiratory droplets.
Many of these surgical articles were originally made of cotton or linen and were sterilized prior to their use in the operating room. In many instances, surgical articles fashioned from cotton or linen provide insufficient barrier protection from the transmission therethrough of airborne contaminants. Furthermore, these articles were costly, and, of course, laundering and sterilization procedures were required before reuse.
Disposable surgical articles, which also may require sterilization prior to their use, have largely replaced linen surgical articles. In some instances, such disposable surgical articles may be formed from nonwoven porous materials such as spunbond polypropylene or nonwoven laminates, such as spunbond/meltblown/spunbond laminates.
Some surgical articles, such as surgical gowns and drapes, are generally designed to loosely fit or overly the wearer. While surgical gowns and drapes are subjected to some pulling forces relative to the movement of the wearer, such gown and drapes generally are not subjected to the load bearing forces or abrupt pulling or shearing forces to which more form fitting surgical articles, such as shoe covers, may be subjected. As such, one challenge for the designers of form fitting surgical articles, such as shoe covers, is to sufficiently secure the seams in the fabric forming these articles such that these articles may withstand such load bearing, pulling and/or shearing forces.
Additionally, in the case of shoe covers, it is not uncommon for the operating room floor or hospital floors, which are generally smooth by design, to become spotted with the above described liquids which may be generated during a surgical procedure. As such, shoe cover designers are also challenged to design cost effective slip-resistant shoe covers.
In the past, shoe covers were coated with a traction adhesive, such as a hot melt adhesive, in order to provide the shoe cover with slip-resistant properties. The traction adhesives were typically sprayed, coated or printed on the shoe covers according to a particular pattern. Such adhesives have been found to be well suited for use with shoe covers made from nonwoven polymeric laminates, which, by themselves, provide limited traction.
Unfortunately, however, since hot melt adhesives are somewhat tacky, the adhesives have a tendency to become coated with dust and other fine particulates over time. Once coated with such particles, the adhesives begin to lose much of their anti-slip characteristics. Further, hot melt adhesives also tend to contaminate the machines that are used to produce the shoe covers.
As such, there is currently a need for a foot covering that has improved slip-resistant properties. More particularly, a need exists for a slip-resistant material for use on shoe covers that is less tacky than adhesives used in the past and that will not collect dust and other particulates during use. Such improved foot coverings are provided by the present invention and will become more apparent upon further review of the following specification.